The two presidents' terms almost coincided: Kaljulaid's five year term ran from October 2016, the month before Trump became president election, ending a few months after Joe Biden was installed as U.S. president.

ERR quizzed Kaljulaid about potential moral dilemmas in communicating with and relating to Trump, and how she handled it when in office.

Finding points of contact and shared values, in the interests of a greater purpose and in the face of by far the greater evil, is important given the change in leadership in the U.S., Kaljulaid said.

"When talking to someone we must cooperate with to stand against a greater evil, then we must find those areas of cooperation where we stand against that greater evil. That is simply how it is. The world would be a very beautiful and simple place if it were black and white, and good were always to triumph effortlessly," she said.

"Regarding the controversial personality [of Trupm], that is just how it is. He was elected as president, by the people of our most important ally, and the elections were democratic," she went on.

There may also be a degree of bark-worse-than-bite going on, she added. "When it comes to stated positions, unfortunately, the situation is that, to be honest, what a person thinks depends only on them, and what they say does not have to be everything they think."

"I believe that in certain cases, for example, if you represent the whole of Europe, like Kaja Kallas does now, or the whole of Estonia, it is not a good idea to start off by discussing value issues with Donald Trump on those areas where we lack common values, but rather to talk about issues where we do share values," Kaljulaid added.

"And there certainly are such points, because if we look at what Donald Trump stood for in Syria, by bombing the Wagner forces, it was primarily, in his mind, retaliation for children being gassed. So, you can always find areas of similarity in thinking, with everyone. It is similarly challenging, for example, to talk with [Polish president] Andrzej Duda; Donald Trump is not the only head of state with whom values-based disagreements may arise. But still you must find the areas of common ground, and this is actually advisable even in less critical situations, when representing your country, or the EU," the former president continued.

At the same time, there are areas – such as who Trump picks for his new administration – which Estonia and the EU have no say in and which might not always involve personalities the latter would have picked.

"Donald Trump is and will remain unpredictable. I am not among those who currently closely represent or shape Estonia's foreign policy. We still have no reason to say we know for sure how things will turn out. With Donald Trump, everything is very unpredictable, but, so far, the steps he has taken in assembling his team have not given particular cause for optimism regarding Eastern European policy," she added.

Kaljulaid also stressed the need for Ukraine and Estonia to engage with Trump's team while recalling past cooperative efforts, and reflected on her commitment, when in office, to prioritizing Estonia's representation and securing U.S. support, during Trump's first term.

Beyond that, Kaljulaid suggested that while media monitoring by embassies is widespread and critical remarks may have an impact, determining when a politician or official in their stated opinions no longer represents Estonia's foreign relations is subjective, and can vary from case to case.

As for her own opinion on the Trump phenomenon and how he had come back for a second term after the discord accompanying his exit from office at the end of his first term, Kaljulaid emphasized the need to understand why many feel excluded from economic growth and societal opportunities, in the U.S.

Addressing issues such as social mobility, educational segregation, and healthcare access is key to restoring optimism and reducing support for controversial figures, she noted.

The latter part of Kaljulaid's presidency had coincided with populists in office in the Estonian government, during the Center-EKRE-Isamaa coalition.

In an interview given to ERR last week, Kaljulaid had said that during Trump's first term, relations between the U.S. president and the Central and Eastern European countries had been "generally positive."

As well as being the last Estonian head of state to meet officially with Vladimir Putin, in April 2019, Kaljulaid had the previous year joined the then-heads of states of Latvia and Lithuania in an official visit to the U.S., taking part in a press conference with Donald Trump.

Leaving aside the relative sizes of the two nations, constitutionally speaking the U.S. President and the Estonian President have quite different roles; the U.S. President is both head of state and government and as such holds significant executive powers, including vetoing legislation, commanding the military, and leading foreign policy. They are directly elected by the people.

In contrast, the Estonian president is elected by the Riigikogu and serves largely in a ceremonial capacity, with limited executive authority, though also plays a pivotal role in national defense and diplomacy.

Donald Trump's re-election earlier this month led to a certain amount of consternation on Toompea, with Reform Party MP Hanah Lahe condemning him as a "convicted criminal who admires dictators, denies climate change, is misogynistic and racist, and lacks any moral compass."

Raimond Kaljulaid (SDE) – the former president's half-sibling - on the other hand called for liberal worldview politicians to rise to a higher standard than their populist and right-wing counterparts, by not insulting Trump in the way that Martin Helme (EKRE) had disparaged Joe Biden.

Meanwhile Justice and Digital Affairs Minister Liisa Pakosta, from Eesti 200, which generally espouses a liberal worldview on social issues, this week stressed the importance of constitutional protections, while critically addressing Trump's nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, the position most closely corresponding to Pakosta's.

Another figure whose appointment has led to some head-scratching in this part of the world is that of Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic Party representative, as national intelligence director. Gabbard has faced criticism over controversial statements about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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